The Pupil was a book I stumbled across on Amazon whilst I was looking for something else. The cover caught my attention and when I looked closer, it sounded like a good read. I love thrillers and I like a good court room drama and I figured this book would have the best of both worlds. Read on to see what I thought about the book.
The Pupil by Ros Carne
Blurb from the Back Cover
She wants to learn everything about you.
Mel has practiced law for twenty years. She is well regarded by her peers. Her clients are happy. But behind the scenes, her life is disordered. Her son is distant. She’s sleeping with a married man who fails to give her what she needs.
It’s poor timing to be assigned a trainee lawyer. The last thing Mel wants is a pupil watching her every move. And Natasha does watch. She sees every detail – and every mistake. Mel begins to feel that Natasha isn’t just learning the job. She’s learning Mel.
Natasha uncovers secrets about Mel that could ruin her. But who will be believed?
My Thoughts On the Book
I enjoyed The Pupil over all. It moved at a decent pace and kept me wanting to know what happened next.
I found Natasha’s character intriguing. For all I was rooting for her to get her comeuppance, at times, I was also rooting for her to get away with what she had done just to see how far she would go and what she would do next. In contrast, Mel annoyed me. She was weak in a way that I don’t believe a woman at the top of a male dominated industry could be. She didn’t seem to have any real agency in her own life – she just sort of muddled along while things happened to her.
Towards the end of the book, Mel does grow a back bone to some extent, although I feel like it’s too little too late. There is something that she does (I won’t say what because it would be a major spoiler) that no lawyer would ever do and whilst I understood that Ros Carne was trying to show that Mel was at her wits’ end, for me it just didn’t ring true.
Despite that, it’s a clever book that’s well written. I love a book where I catch myself rooting for the wrong person every now and again because it means their POV is so well done, I am seeing things their way.
Conclusion and Rating
Overall, I enjoyed The Pupil and I would definitely read another book by Ros Carne. Like I said above, there was one sticking point for me where things got a bit too far fetched, but if you take it with a pinch of salt and just enjoy the book for what it is – fiction – it really is an enjoyable read. 3.5/5
You can grab your copy of The Pupil (aff link, see bottom of post for details) here.
Have you read The Pupil? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments 🙂
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Exactly what I thought- particularly about Mel. At the start of the book it seemed she was successful and respected, but I found this hard to reconcile with how slipshod and lazy she seemed to be. But overall it was a pacey read. The ending was a bit implausible.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who found Mel to be annoying.
Definitely sounds like an interesting read – I’ll keep it in mind for when my current pile of books runs out! #AnythingGoes
Love the fact that it was the cover that got your attention. One of the things that it’s hard to get with online shopping for books is that ability to browse around and stumble across something great just because it caught your eye. #anythinggoes
yeah i agree – amazon is great when you know what you want but you can’t beat a real bookstore for a good browse